


cast her fragrance and her radiance over me

by Riana1



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dorne for the win, F/F, F/M, nothing you love ever lasts, the only way to win is not to play, the women are the strong ones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 12:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riana1/pseuds/Riana1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhaenys Targaryen gets everything she ever prayed for.</p><p>And it is everything she will ever regret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cast her fragrance and her radiance over me

“She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her...”  
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“Beauty and love pass, I know... Oh, there's sadness, too. I suppose all great happiness is a little sad. Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses-”  
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

 

 

 

This is the moment of her great triumph.

The bells of Great Sept can be heard ten miles outside the city, joyously pealing the good news: the king is crowned, the queen is wed, place a crown upon her head. The tintinnabulation sounds out like a skipping song played by children and Rhaenys vacantly composes couplets in her head to the tune of them as a distraction.

Here is the king.

The great doors are flung open, letting in the brilliance of the day and the dull roar of the pressing masses outside. A few wayward blossoms sweep inside as the snowfall of flowers rains down from every terrace and balcony available. Aegon Targaryen, the Sixth of His Name, steps out to meet his people, cloaked in scarlet livery and the crown of his namesake, clutching the hand of his bride.

Here is the queen.

Her gown is a delicate creation of samite and sheer Myrish lace, covered in pearl studded rosettes, and with long daggered sleeves that floated when she raised her arm to wave at the chanting crowds in the plaza. She is a vision visited by every sighing girl, starry-eyed knight and sweet- tongued singer, a dream deferred to waking life, the Maiden in flesh.

Here is the love, never seen.

Margaery Tyrell, now Queen Margaery Targaryen, leans over whisper in her husband's ear and Rhaenys tastes bile on the back of her throat.

Rhaenys shuts her eyes, she never thought victory could ever taste like this.

***

Rhaenys Targaryen was born to be a queen.

Here is a secret: she rather be anything but.

***

Rhaenys does not remember her father.

Not in the traditional sense. She recognizes his absence though. In the tense low conversations flitting around the Red Keep, ones that stumble but do not stop when she runs after Balerion under the dragon skulls. The courtiers barely notice her. Her ears prick when her father's name and she hushes Balerion when he tries squirm away again.

Later after her nurses find her and scold her for dirtying her dress again, Rhaenys will climb in Ashara Dayne's lap and ask why did her father run away and not take them?

Did he not loved Mother and me anymore?

Ashara will tell her how could anyone not love a princess like herself, how Rhaenys looked exactly like her mother, and could she imagine anyone not loving her mother because Ashara couldn't. There is a softness when Ashara speaks her mother's name, el-ee-ah, that makes Rhaenys sleepy.

Ashara says her mother's name like it was a lullaby.

Rhaenys likes that. She likes it more when she can crawl into bed between them and they cradle her close, mouthing kisses into her hair. That hasn't happen since her brother was born. Since her father went away.

In a decade down the line, Rhaenys will realize that Ashara never actually answered her question, not that it would changed anything.

Rhaegar Targaryen will die before he gets south of the Neck.

Aerys Targaryen will die before his son.

Elia Martell will hold the throne for her newborn son for six and ten years, surviving three assassination attempts, two uprisings, and one rebellion.

***

Here is the truth- Rhaegar Targaryen runs away with Lyanna Stark only to fall victim to a swamp fever brought on by errant scratch. He will survive for nine days, long enough to receive news of his father's death, and pen his will.

He will die, delirious and dreaming, a woman's name on his lips. The singers will say it was the name of his lovely forlorn wife, the faithful queen on high, the better to curry favor with.

Lyanna Stark will be returned to her father in disgrace, her betrothal broken, and quietly married off to the newly widowed Lord Medger Cerwyn.

Aerys Targaryen will die clawing out his own throat.

No one from the Narrow Sea to the Sunset Sea can dispute this.

Here is the truth- Rhaegar dies screaming the name Visenya as if the world was coming to an end. Lyanna Stark will live the rest of her life a half a day's rode from her beloved Winterfell with a man who dotes on her and  will rule along side her stepdaughter when he passes. Elia Martell and Ashara Dayne will murder the Mad King with a pinprick ring and Basilisk venom.

Does this change anything?

***

Rhaenys Targaryen looks uncannily like her mother, save for her eyes.

Her greatest wish, until she meets Margaery Tyrell, is for her to have her mother's heart.

Unhappily, she will have her father's.

 

 

 

 


End file.
